A place for some seriously wild ruminations

Conservative Newspapers Betray Themselves

Let’s examine the reasoning of conservative newspapers that have endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump the last week-and-a-half or so. The papers in question are the Dallas Morning News, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Arizona Republic. All three have a long history of endorsements for Republican presidential candidates. The Arizona Republic has never before endorsed a Democrat. This examination is based on a USA Today article that can be found at the web address below:

In the article, the newspapers, collectively, cited the following reasons for endorsing Hillary instead of Trump:

1. he is not conservative;

2. he has an “inability to control himself”;

3. he has a “long history of objectifying women”;

4. he lacks a presidential temperament;

5. he is “a clear and present danger to our country”;

6. he “plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best.”

Let’s take the first point and ask which of the two candidates is more conservative, and please remember that I am not agreeing with the Donald on all his positions, nor with any particular “conservative” position but only seeing whether the newspapers’ explanations make sense

Donald Trump wants to lower taxes; Hillary wants to raise them. Trump wants to build a stronger military; Hillary doesn’t. Trump wants immigrants and American citizens to abide by our country’s immigration laws and to suffer the consequences if they do not; Hillary wants to violate our immigration laws, probably with executive orders like her potential predecessor, and she doesn’t want illegals to suffer any consequences for breaking our immigration laws. Trump wants to improve the care for our veterans; Hillary does, too. Trump supports the development of new energy technologies but wants to use the existing resources we have to create or maintain jobs and establish energy independence; Hillary wants to get rid of existing energy resources, even if it means job losses and withdrawal from energy independence. Trump rejects climate change caused by man; Hillary accepts climate change caused by man. Trump wants to keep and secure citizens’ Second Amendment rights; Hillary wants to begin to modify those rights, if not ultimately remove most of them. Trump supports the right to life; Hillary fights for the right to slaughter babies, including the right to crush their skulls after they are partially born. Trump wants our military to be able to stand up to and defend against enemy acts, including firing at our boys and girls, playing chicken with them, boarding their vessels, and humiliating them by making them kneel in front of enemy soldiers. Hillary laughs and scoffs at that, claiming it would cause another war: Our weakness and humiliation are okay to her.

More could be said, but you get the point. Trump is, at the least, more conservative than Hillary and, conversely, Hillary is more liberal than Trump. On that basis, the newspapers should have endorsed Trump, not Hillary.

Let me skip to No. 3 and I’ll return to No. 2. Number 3 is the claim that Trump objectifies women. For some, an important proof of that is Hillary’s recent assertion that Trump told Alicia Machado of Venezuela that she was fat prior to her winning the 1996 Miss Universe pageant, it appears. Some accounts detailed the fat remark as specifically being “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”. In an interview on Inside Edition in May, Machado herself said that Trump called her an “eating machine” and told her to lose weight before her win.

If Trump walks up to just any woman who happens to be overweight, and he begins to make remarks like that, then, yes, he is being intrusive and rude. However, Machado entered into a beauty contest in which looking your best is the goal. Coaches tell football players their playing weight is excessive or insufficient, that their playing habits stink or get the job done. It’s a coach’s responsibility to communicate those negatives, even harshly or angrily, to the players so the players will improve or lose their jobs. It was Trump’s responsibility to tell Machado what she looked like and how she could correct it. Seems like it worked. Machado won the 1996 crown.

Yet Hillary herself damned the women who claimed her husband had harassed or molested them. Hillary tried to destroy their lives, creating the so-called “War Room” to crush them. She or her mercenaries frequently intimidated, threatened, or possibly attacked those who accused or who aired their accusations. Here are a couple of articles to reference:

Presidential temperament is so vague, but if I take a stab at it, I’ll approach it from this direction: I appreciate Trump’s blunt honesty. I don’t care for Hillary’s well-oiled pretenses. It has been well-documented by former secret service agents, former military men, and former White House or other staffers what Hillary really behaves like where and when American citizens cannot see her. She is nothing short of haughty, arrogant, and vicious, but she hides that lack of presidential temperament. If you are cool with that, I can’t help you. If you’re a newspaper reporter, editor, or columnist, how can you accept that? Why would you take greater umbrage at a propensity for casual, off-the-cuff remarks, usually directed at people Trump believes have attacked or offended him, and which have little to no impact on governance, than Hillary’s angry venom towards those who work for her, towards those women whom her husband has sexually harassed and abused, and towards the people she hates and about whom she keeps a list of in her little black book?

Hillary has never demonstrated a presidential temperament but a mask. What we know about Hillary is that in the pressure cooker of the White House, her insecurities and latent anger undermine her equanimity and leave her seething, imbalanced, and often out-of-control.

Presumably, the high-sounding notion that Trump presents a “clear and present danger” is based upon his temperament, and that’s been answered. I’ll just add that if Trump’s temperament was out of whack, he could not have built the multi-billion dollar business he had.

Ask yourself, “Whose temperament has led to criminal behavior, has exposed our country to cyberhacking and loss of secrets, and has led to the unnecessary deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and the subsequent lies about what happened to their survivors?”

Finally, let’s address the claim that Trump plays on fear, using racism, xenophobia, and misogyny to exploit an electoral advantage.

Trump wants to deport illegal aliens, prevent the flow of illegal aliens and illegal drugs across our borders by building a wall, and end the drain of our public treasury to give benefits to illegals. Are any of those goals illegal? In fact, don’t Trump’s proposals merely enforce our existing laws and provide the means to accomplish that, regardless of where the illegals are from? Every country in the world has immigration laws, and most have barbed wire fences or walls and checkpoints along their borders. So how can proponents of border control be racist, xenophobic, or misogynistic in any way? Aren’t Republicans and conservatives the upholders of the Constitution, in whose Article 1, Section 8 lies the genesis of immigration law and the enforcement of it?

Trump’s comments on a few, particular women may have been out of bounds or over the top, but his family and professional history exhibit a strong appreciation of and for women: he employs more women in the upper echelon of his companies than men, he pays women in his company as much as or more than men (perhaps because of better performance?); thus, women enjoy the same opportunities for advancement as men in a Trump company; he has provided a safe, pleasant, stimulating environment for his employees, and his female employees in particular view him as their champion; he deeply cares about his wife and his daughters.

Trump routinely values women highly, and he owns a long, long track record that manifests he has treated them with respect and has honored their meritorious business accomplishments. That’s not a misogynist.

On the other hand, it can easily be argued that Hillary married a misogynist, that she aided and abetted his acts of misogyny, and that she engaged in misogyny when she tried to crush her husband’s accusers, her fellow women.

Look, each citizen has to vote his or her conscience. If you prefer one candidate’s resumé over another’s, one’s ideas over another’s, or just like one candidate more than another, that’s fine.

News organs, however, claim to have examined the facts and to have made sense of them and then held them up to a standard they claimed guided them to their conclusion. In that light, the newspapers cited above erred and failed.

Which of the candidates is more conservative? Trump.

Though each of their arenas of development has differed, which of the candidates has demonstrated greater success and efficiency? Trump.

Which of the two candidates has actually been a chief executive? Trump.

Which candidate brings business and financial expertise to the table? Trump.

Which candidate brings the most experience in successful negotiations? To be fair, we must break this down. Trump earns the most consideration for experience in successful negotiations; Hillary’s experiences in negotiation are much closer to what a president ‘s would be, and that gives her the edge there.

Who has the more presidential temperament and ability to control himself/herself? Trump. The behind the scenes accounts of Trump’s behavior are vastly more favorable, even if his public persona appears a bit harsh or jagged: calm, patient, listening, learning, a quick study – all adjectives used to describe the Donald.

The under-the-mask descriptions of Hillary are much less than flattering, and they paint a picture of an anxious, insecure, volatile, secretive, take-no-prisoners person immersed in self-absorption and enrichment and willing to punish anyone she perceives crosses her.

Your choice, but let’s not pretend that Hillary is the “better” or “more “qualified” or “conservative” candidate.

Shame on the shameless conservative newspapers! They’d rather have an establishment candidate than one that represents American people and puts America first.